


Desperate Times Call For...

by flecksofpoppy



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alan is devious, Based on a Tumblr Post, Eric is oblivious, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Now kiss, grossly sweet, not owning up to this, what is this even
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 19:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1316032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flecksofpoppy/pseuds/flecksofpoppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alan is devious; Eric is oblivious. Written for a ridiculous tumblr prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desperate Times Call For...

**Author's Note:**

> Some numbered information for you: 1. This is all Annie’s fault; 2. Read her awesome Grelliam version of this prompt [here](http://archadianskies.tumblr.com/post/79133402320/jack-the-reaper); 3. the original prompt is [here](http://flecksofpoppy.tumblr.com/post/78820403127/acrazypigeon-twobearsforever-movie-about-a). 
> 
> The actual prompt in the post was: _MOVIE ABOUT A PERSON WHO FALLS IN LOVE WITH DEATH AND CONTINUOUSLY COMMITS MURDER IN ORDER TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH THEM UNTIL DEATH IS FINALLY LIKE “YOU ARE MAKING MY JOB SO MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THAN IT NEEDS TO BE LETS JUST GO OUT FOR A COFFEE OR SOMETHING JESUS FUCK”_
> 
> Am I stretching Alan’s believable characterization here? I sure as hell am. WHATEVER. I DID IT FOR THE LOLZ. And yes, I am aware this is COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY RIDICULOUS. NO REGRETS.

There is a little known fact about, one, Alan Humphries, employed at the Grim Reaper Dispatch Association for just under a decade now.

In the present day, most staff know him as Eric Slingby’s former student, a prodigy with triple A’s, or one of the few other Reapers besides William T. Spears with a spotless record. He also has an affinity for plants, that, while confusing to most, is generally overlooked as eccentricity. Given the London division’s cast of personalities, to begrudge a Reaper an eccentricity as benign as an interest in botany would be a bit curmudgeonly. 

However, what is not commonly known is that Alan hasn’t always been a Reaper. Alan, in fact, spent a year in the Administrative department; but he didn’t end up there due to any force outside his control. It was solely because he opted out of his mentorship with Eric.

There’s the occasional moments when Alan will get pissed at an after party and give the real reason for his switch to a different department. It had caused quite the scandal at the time, since he’d been accepted as a transfer from the Birmingham division, and as Eric’s mentee, a position intensely coveted by other Junior Reapers. After a year, he’d thrown it all away and decided to go into the pencil pusher section.

If Alan is being his usual, reserved self, he will say it was because they needed extra help and he’s always been good with numbers.

If Alan is righteously hammered, on the other hand, he’ll tell the truth, and slur out: “Wasn’t cut out for it at all at first... Not a bit! Have you ever cried on a reap? Because—” That’s about the point when Eric hauls him away; it’s a rare thing to see, but it does happen every once in a while.

During his tenure in Administrative, Alan was a rather beloved staff member. He was known for being efficient, precise, and having excellent attention to detail. He was polite, professional, and punctual, and they didn’t even mind the tiny flower pot he kept at the corner of his desk. All in all, he’d often say it was a relief to be sitting at a desk.

But then, the mistakes started. Paperwork went missing, ink wasn’t restocked, reports weren’t filed, and the To Die List was messy. The entire department fell into chaos, and the division had come to rely so heavily on Alan’s organizational skills, everything almost fell apart when he stopped being his usual, flawless self. He was still brilliant, but some he’d seemed to scale back his perfectionist approach to all tasks.

There were a number of livid Reapers that burst into the Administrative offices, demanding to see the individual responsible for putting down the wrong time of death. 

“You lot have actually _killed_ people!” one Reaper ranted. “I thought he was having a heart attack, and in reality, he was really just coughing. Your list had the wrong time of death, and I reaped him by accident!”

This resulted in more paperwork being filed, an erasure of human memory, and the soul being reinserted into the body. These mistakes were chalked up to random mishaps or others’ problems. More mortals started to die, though, from accidental reaps. There were wrong times for deaths listed, incorrect names, made-up causes of how the deceased came to be such. In fact, if anything, the more the Administrative department tried to fix the problems, the more complex they became. 

It got to the point where so many people were being reaped accidentally, that there was word from Upper Management that they needed to send the best Reapers to investigate and oversee the implementation of the To Die List. William sent off Grell and Eric to investigate, and then, it was Eric who showed up in the office that afternoon.

“Whose bloody handwriting is this?” he’d thundered at no one in particular, scythe still in his hand, covered in blood. “Another wrongful death! I bloody well despise paperwork, mate.”

There was a nervous murmuring around the office, until Eric’s eyes fell on Alan.

“Alan...” His face immediately brightened, and he grinned. “Pillocks. Here, give it to Humphries. He’ll figure it out.”

He’d placed the report on Alan’s desk, nodded confidently, and then taken his leave.

It seemed that this didn’t help. When asked, Alan blamed it on the new staff that had been hired; Eric, of course, believed him.

And poor Eric thereafter was placed consistently on the worst shifts and the most confusing reaps, since William didn’t trust anyone else to notice mistakes. Eric was very good at making sure everything on the List added up, but even he accidentally reaped at least one innocent person per shift.

“Again?” Alan had asked sympathetically as Eric came into the office. It’d been months, and nothing had improved. The department head was being sacked, and someone from Leeds was being brought in instead to try to get to the bottom of the bizarre, ongoing phenomenon of Administrative giving out incorrect To Die Lists.

Eric had sank down into the chair near Alan’s desk, and cradled his head in one hand, watching as Alan’s fingers clicked the keys of his typewriter. They sat in comfortable silence, since everyone else had gone home already. It had just gone six, and Eric was in the Administrative offices so frequently now, he and Alan had also taken to walking home with one another.

For the first six months after they’d parted ways from Collections, they’d barely seen each other. Now, Eric saw Alan almost every day, if only because of administrative problems. 

Eric let out a meditative hum, and Alan looked up at him.

“I hope this lets up soon,” he remarked with a sigh. “I’ve ‘killed’ at least a hundred people at this point.”

“That’s a lot of paperwork and reinserted souls,” Alan commented absentmindedly.

Eric made a face and nodded in agreement. “ _Someone’s_ to blame,” he said, frowning and crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’ll be done in a moment.” Alan finally stopped typing and pulled the crisp sheet out of the typewriter. However, suddenly the mood shifted, and Eric was staring at something on Alan’s desk.

“What’s that?”

Alan tilted his head in confusion, looking down where Eric was staring.

“It’s a memorandum, to a different department.”

“It’s hand-written.”

Alan raised an eyebrow. “My typewriter broke that day. Ready?”

“That’s _your_ handwriting.”

Alans’s eyebrows raised and he looked at Eric as if he’d finally lost it. “Uh... yes?”

Eric’s jaw dropped and he stared at Alan is bewilderment.

“It’s you,” he hissed in a shocked whisper, unable to stop his mouth from hanging open. “ _Alan,_ you’ve been mucking up the To Die List? It’s your handwriting! The same penmanship I always see making ‘corrections’ or ‘adjustments.’”

Alan was never very good at hiding his feelings from Eric, and he looked down at the ground.

“Yes,” he finally admitted. “And I’ve caused you to kill—or at least accidentally reap—dozens of bystanders, as well as inconvenience you.”

“Well,” Eric said, standing up and crossing his arms, as if afraid Alan was about to attack him in a psychotic episode. “I wouldn’t say _killed,_ so much as... bloody hell, Alan. ‘Inconvenience’ is an understatement.”

Alan, in his desperate moments, could be rather mad.

The next natural question, though, was of course...

“ _Why,_ in all the planes, did you—?”

“I never saw you,” Alan blurted out, pushing away from his desk and standing. “I wanted to see you again every day, but you never came here, and...” He bit his lip. 

Instead of responding to the sheer madness of rationalizing that the best way to see Eric was to ensure that hundreds of humans were accidentally reap to cause problems, Eric blurted in an angry, resentful voice, “Well then why did you bloody well _leave me_ in Collections?”

They stared at each other, and Alan could feel the blush start slowly crawling up his cheeks.

“I wasn’t good at it,” he finally replied stubbornly, frowning ever so slightly, but not betraying any other emotions.

“What are you on about? You’re brilliant at it!”

“I bloody well _cried,”_ Alan finally explodes, shouting, “on my first reap! You saw it. You saw how pathetic I was. I’m not _brilliant_ at it. Stop saying that.”

“You git,” Eric growled, and before Alan realized what was happening, he was caught in Eric’s embrace. He didn’t pull away, and instead, just inhaled.

“I _missed_ you,” Eric said after a moment, his voice quiet. “All you had to do was come back to Collections. You didn’t have to muck up the entire afterlife for every creature in order to get me to see you.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to. Not of your own will, anyway,” Alan whispered. “Sounds silly now.”

“Yes, it does,” Eric replied sternly, pulling away to look at Alan. “But I did come. I would’ve come far sooner, but I didn’t want to bother you. You seemed happier in this department.”

Alan groaned, shooting a look around, and said quietly, “It’s so boring.”

Eric snorted, and Alan looked grim suddenly. “Are you going to tell anyone?”

“Alan, mate,” Eric replied just as seriously, “if I told anyone, they’d send you straight to Purgatory for the rest of your days. Which is forever, of course.”

Alan sighed.

“Will you come back to Collections?” Eric hesitated, but then managed to add more quietly, “And stay with me?”

There was a subtle nod, and then a shy gaze cast at the ground. “Yes.”

“And if you’re going to turn the entire divine plane on its head, at least tell me first.”

Alan laughed quietly; yes, he was officially back in Collections now.

No one could figure out after that why the To Die List seemed to go back to normal. Alan rejoining Collections wasn’t particularly monumental, and Administrative even had a rather elaborate going away party for him, beloved as he was for his skills.

It was just after Alan made Senior Reaper that Eric asked him again if they could stay together, and Alan had kissed him.


End file.
